Fortiter in Infinitum
by GamerDroid56
Summary: The UNSC Infinity: The most powerful ship in the galaxy. While hiding from Cortana and M'dama's remaining forces, damage results in a malfunction in the Infinity's slipspace drive. Rather than wiping the ship from existence, however, the ship is instead sent back to Earth... Just not their Earth. Will the Infinity end the Human-Covenant War early, or cause a worse evil to emerge?
1. Chapter 1: The Beginning

**AN: Hey guys! I'm really sorry about the long time since the last Changing Universes update. I haven't had time to work on it in awhile due to work and school, but plan on having another chapter out by December. As for this new story, I've had the idea for awhile, but not had the time to work on it until now. So, here is "To Infinity with Courage"**

**Deep Space: 1740 hours; February 10th 2558**

Captain Thomas Lasky stumbled as he made his way to his seat. "Roland, I need to know what's going on!"

"Jul M'dama, sir. His fleet's back. They dropped out of slipspace right in front of us. Covenant boarding craft are inbound towards our hangars."

Lasky activated his chair's crash webbing as the ship rocked again. "Lieutenant Austen, return fire, all weapons. Roland, take those boarding craft down." Lasky tapped in a series of commands, the _Infinity _appearing on the secondary holotank along with the status of the ship's numerous combat systems while an overview of the battle appeared on the primary holotank. "Status on shields?"

"Shields are at 78% and rapidly falling." Roland shook his head. "Captain, the shields can't take this much strain for long."

The ship shuddered, the shields dropping another 8% from the volley of torpedoes. Then, the _Infinity _responded. The _Infinity_'s MACs were the first to fire, with each round shearing an enemy ship in two. Four red dots blinked off the map. Hundreds or perhaps thousands of Archer and Howler missiles launched from hundreds of missile pods littered around the Infinity's hull, overwhelming the point defenses of several enemy ships and consuming them in fire. Another 3 dots blinked off the map as the secondary guns opened fire, pounding away at the shields of the Covenant armada that had surrounded the UNSC flagship. The shields fell another 13% under the impacts of multiple torpedoes and rapid firing pulse lasers, with the MACs firing again and shredding another four enemy ships off the field.

Lasky leaned forward, watching the shields rapidly fall._ "Hold on, _Infinity. _Just for a few more minutes._"

* * *

Several minutes later, the Covenant fleet was orbital debris and dust. Lasky let out a sigh of relief, disengaging his seat's restraints as he stood. "Roland, what's our status?"

"Shields are at 8%, but regenerating. Other than that, only a few casualties." Roland pressed his fingers to the side of his World War II avatar's headset. "Hold on. Marines are still repelling boarding parties in most of hangars. Marines in hangar eleven aren't responding. Spartan fireteams are enroute to secure it."

"Another slipspace rupture!" Lieutenant James shouted, causing Lasky to turn to the viewports. The slipspace rupture was massive, and the vessel that emerged caused Lasky to blanch. "It's a supercruiser!"

"_How did M'dama get a supercruiser?"_ Lasky quickly made his way back to his seat. "Fire MACs one through four." Lasky glanced at the shield status, noting the measly 23% power left before the number promptly dropped to 13% as the supercruiser fired a pair of energy projectors at the human flagship. "Lock Onagers on that ships and fire Rapier pods A1 through C20."

The first of the _Infinity'_s MAC rounds impacted against the supercruiser's shields, but bounced off while the other three missed due to the ship's sudden rotation. The missiles hit a moment later, barely putting a dent in the supercruiser's powerful shields. Lasky's eyes narrowed. "_They shouldn't have been able to dodge those MAC rounds."_

"Sir, that supercruiser is using Forerunner engines, same as us. They've basically been strapped onto the back of it." Roland gestured, displaying the rear of the supercruiser which was much larger than normal and also had the sleek lines associated with Forerunner technology rather than Covenant technology.

"Can we beat them?" Lasky asked, leaning forward.

"Maybe, but we'd take a hell of a beating, sir," Roland said as the Covenant warship rotated back into position. The sides began glowing an angry red: a clear indicator that it was preparing to fire plasma torpedoes.

"Lieutenant Jet, prep for an emergency slipspace jump. Put us 500 kilometers off their starboard bow as soon as they fire those torpedoes." The man affirmed Lasky's order, rapidly tapping the specifications into his console.

The torpedoes fired, releasing themselves into the void and guiding themselves to their target. They'd never reach it, however, as a hole in normal space was torn open in front of the _Infinity_ and the massive vessel's engines activated to propel it through.

The supercruiser's shipmaster snarled in rage at the possibility of his enemy escaping, and ordered that his crew transfer all power to energy projector one and fire. The lights dimmed as his crew followed his command, the lethal plasma lancing through space to impact against the human warship. It's shields buckled, ceasing to exist after less than a second of the impact, and the lance speared into the warship's stern. The warship continued despite the damage, though it's engines pulsed with less power. The slipspace portal, however, had begun to release angry jolts of lightning, and the typical black hole in space had been replaced with an angry red spiral that led… Nobody on the _Infinity_ knew. The ship slipped into the portal.

**Earth: 1760 hours; June 24th 2552**

It was a normal day on Athens Station, Ensign Adam Loredo had decided, as he made his way to the command center for his duty shift. Even if there was a great deal of stress amongst… Well, everyone, due to the losses the Human-Covenant War was racking up and the relentless advance of the Covenant, everyone still completed their duties with calm efficiency.

Adam sat down at his station, logging into the station's mainframe and pulling up the Sol System monitoring array tied into each Orbital Defense Platform. He leaned back as the system loaded, taking a sip of the sludge the mess hall called coffee, and then nearly spat it out. There was a massive unknown contact above the Moon that hadn't been there a moment ago.

Adam did what his training told him to do, and hit the big red "alert" button.

**Earth: 1773 hours; June 24th 2552**

Several UNSC warships engaged their engines and began moving towards the Moon's orbit with several others began repositioning their bows turning to point their Magnetic Accelerator Cannons towards the unknown contact that had appeared. The orbital defence platforms began reorienting to aim their more powerful MACs at them as well.

Fleet Admiral Lord Terrence Hood stood with his hands behind his back as the general quarters claxons sounded and crew members rushed around the command center of Cairo Station and calmly shouted orders. "All ships, prepare to engage the unknown contact if necessary. Battle groups four through six are to assume formation alpha-one around Earth while one through three are to approach the unknown."

Hood was honestly worried, but he could never showed it. Everyone relied upon him being a solid rock to lean on in a fight. _"Could it be the Covenant? After so long, could they have found Earth?"_ His thoughts were interrupted by one of the officers.

"Sir, the _Iron Warhammer_ has a visual on the unknown."

One of large screens hanging above them changed to an image from the lead Marathon class in battle group one. The large ship was blocky and grey, covered in weapon emplacements. It was clearly not a Covenant ship based on its appearance and was much much larger than anything the UNSC had ever produced. Initial sensor scans put it at over five kilometers in length. No lights were visible on the unknown, and no signals came from it either. The ship displayed no life at all as it slowly spun, Sol's light reflecting off the hull.

"Permission to engage the... What the hell is that?" The Admiral commanding the battle groups one through three said, surprised.

The upper bow of the vessel finished rotating revealing several things. The first was the obvious plasma scoring that was associated with Covenant plasma torpedoes and energy lances. The second sight caused Hood and the rest of the fleet a large amount of surprise. Large, white, blocky text was clearly visible on the ship's bow.

"UNSC _Infinity_?" One of the ensigns on the bridge said, his surprise clear in his tone. The moment the ensign finished his sentence, the power readings of the vessels spiked. Several lights activated, the exterior pulsed orange-yellow for a moment, and then the power readings died down again.

Hood crossed his arms behind his back as he turned to the communications officer. "Have our vessels group up around that ship." He turned back to the view feed. "And have Blue Team prepare for a mission."

**AN: I'll try to fit with the dates of Halo canon, but some things may have to be changed as is the norm in time travel stories. For example, Blue Team is probably nowhere near Earth at this time, maybe even preparing for Operation: OCEAN BREAKER, but I'd like to have them here for the start of this fanfic at the least. I do have ideas for how to mitigate the whole "future knowledge" issue, but you'll have to check back next chapter for that. I'm also going to ignore the whole paradox issue as well (goes back in time, fixes issue, never went back in time to begin with, issue not fixed, etc/goes back in time, changes time, they cease to exist entirely, etc).**

**Also, I'd like to say that the Infinity will still be an extremely powerful warship, but they'll also be facing the massive martial might of the actual Covenant rather than M'dama's look-alikes. I may have under-exaggerated the Infinity's power in the fights between the Infinity and M'dama's fleet and supercruiser, and if that's an issue, I apologize. That will not be the case in future chapters, but the Infinity won't be massacring fleets like the one that attacked Reach by itself or anything ridiculous like that.**

**I hope you guys enjoy this new story. If you have constructive criticism, I would be happy to accept it from any of you.**


	2. Chapter 2: Re-Initializing Systems

**AN: A new chapter in less than 3-6 months? What?! Tha's imphassible! **

**Lunar Orbit: 1835 hours; June 24th 2552**

John-117 removed his MA5B assault rifle from the rack on board Blue Team's pelican. Around him, the rest of his team did the same, their dull green MJOLNIR armor stopping anyone who wasn't a Spartan from seeing anything but machine like efficiency.

They had all read the briefing command had thrown together for them, which essentially meant they were going into an unknown situation entirely blind. There were no schematics and the pulsing of the "UNSC _Infinity_"'s shields as well as the thick armor plating prevented the surrounding ships from getting any internal scans of the massive vessel. The pulses were, however, in regular enough intervals which meant that the Pelican Blue Team was on would be able to enter the only open and accessible hangar bay.

There was a dull thud as the Pelican reached its destination. John turned and pulled the AI chip containing his companion from the linkup with the Pelican dropship before hitting the button to lower the ramp. The moment he did so, his MJOLNIR's air recyclers activated, indicating that this hangar bay didn't have enough air to support him or his fellow Spartans as was expected. There _was_ a large hull breach after all.

Blue Team moved down the ramp of the pelican and took in the hangar, helmets recording everything for study by the UNSC. Near the edge of the bay, the remains of a pair of Covenant Phantoms rested against the wall. All across the hangar bay, the bodies of poorly equipped Covenant forces floated in the zero-vacuum of the only hangar with open bay doors. There were also a large number of human corpses, some of which were dressed in the standard navy uniform while others were dressed in strange looking armor. They clearly weren't Spartans, but they didn't look like marines or ODSTs either. It was very strange.

"Chief, there's a door at the far end of the hangar." Cortana spoke to John through his neural lace as a marker appeared on his HUD. "You'll probably have to pry it open though."

The Master Chief nodded and gestured for his team to move to the door. They stacked up, and the Chief hit the emergency release switch.

They moved into the empty corridor, spotlights on their helmets activating.

**UNSC **_**Infinity**_**: UNKNOWN; UNKNOWN**

"-aptain! Cap… Asky, can ou hear me?!" A voice was shouting. It was familiar, but it was difficult to determine who it belonged to. His head was swimming. "_What happened? Where am I?"_ It all came back a moment later.

Lasky gasped as his eyes snapped open, groaning in pain a moment later. His head was pounding and he was seeing stars. His chest hurt too. It took him a moment to realize that it was because he'd snapped through his crash webbing when… "S-status report." Lasky groaned again as he slowly pushed himself to his feet, leaning heavily on his right side as he limped over to the center holotable.

"We've lost practically all power across the ship, sir. We're running on backups, but those're failing. We can't even get the doors open." An officer responded from somewhere on the other end of the bridge. Lasky looked around, finally taking the bridge in. It was a mess, with a few of the consoles utterly wrecked while others had bodies slumped over them. Most of them were breathing. Some weren't. The officers and crewmen who weren't unconscious or dead were moving around the bridge or under their consoles or under the deck plating conducting repairs. Another officer was taking care of the people too injured to help, applying what first aid knowledge they had with the minimum medical supplies they had on the bridge.

"Do we have any way of communicating with engineering?" Lasky leaned against the holotable, waving off the temporary medical officer when he moved to help his captain.

"No, sir. One of the Spartans guarding the door told us that he was heading to engineering to see what was going on. He also said he'd be stopping by on S-deck to pick up a few more in case the Covenant or Cortana's Prometheans are there." The lieutenant left aside the fact that if there were either of them on board, then the entire engineering crew would be dead and that they would soon follow. The best and brightest engineers the UNSC could offer had been in charge of working on _Infinity_'s engines. Without them, they'd be left with junior engineers who wouldn't be able to repair the engines or reactor, which would have an end result of death for everyone on board.

"Alright." Lasky winced as he pushed off the holotable. "Can we force open the doors?"

The lieutenant shook his head. "No, sir. The doors sealed themselves when the power died. Part of the security measures the UNSC installed last time _Infinity_ was in drydock. We've been trying to hook up the oxygen recycler power supply to the door so we can open it, but we haven't had any-" The door hissed open, causing the lieutenant to stop speaking.

Lasky grinned, though it looked more like a pained grimace, before he made his way to the door. "Alright, get everyone who needs medical attention to the medical bay. Anyone who isn't, let's get down to engineering to set up a temporary command center. Engineering should have some batteries or power cells we can use." Lasky ignored the chorus of "Yes sir" that came from the bridge crew as he stepped into the corridor, moving to the remaining Spartan guard. "Can you contact your squadmate? I want to know what's going on in engineering."

The Spartan nodded, pressing a hand to the side of her helmet for a moment. "Yes, sir. Engineering is clear and the engineers are working on restoring power. They say they'll have power within the hour." Lasky grimaced again. An hour until power was restored would be… Problematic, especially if the Covenant or Cortana found them.

"Alright. Go down to S-deck and get a fireteam to check on hangar eleven. I doubt the team I'd had sent down originally got there before this happened." The Spartan nodded, making her way down the corridor and then down an access hatch to make her way down to the S-deck.

Lasky moved along with the rest of his crew, the bridge's marine detachment surrounding the officers to escort them to the medical bay and engineering.

**Lunar Orbit, Unknown Vessel: 1847 hours; June 24th 2552**

John was getting nervous. The hairs on the back of neck tingled as he moved through the corridors with Blue Team. They stacked up on another door before hitting the emergency release. Fred moved in along with Kelly, with Linda staying back with her M392 DMR. The corridor was just as empty as the rest. For a ship as massive as this, there would have been thousands of crew members. "_So where are they?_" John took point again, rifle raised.

"Chief, there's a holotank there. I should be able to get something off it's short term memory." Cortana spoke across the team's secure comms.

"Affirmative." The Chief moved over to the holotank, Blue Team surrounding him and facing outwards in case something did come out. John reached behind his head and pulled Cortana's chip from his helmet. The chip glowed a soft blue for a moment before it, and the chip, disappeared into the holotank. A moment later, the lights flickered on and the ship rumbled. "Cortana?"

The AI's avatar appeared on the holotank, a confused look on her face. "I didn't do anything…" The doors opened a moment later and five people suddenly rushed in, causing John to spin and raise his weapon as they quickly surrounded Blue Team with weapons raised and aimed at the four Spartan IIs.

The Spartan IIs took the threats in instantly. Heavy armor as indicated by the weight of their footsteps as they had rushed in, primary and secondary weapons and sidearms, and polarized face plates. The armor varied in color and model, but all of the sets were clearly professionally made despite this fact. The soldiers were also clearly professionals, keeping well away from the four Spartans and maintaining their aim on them with their chosen weapons.

Kelly made the first move, covering the distance between her and a pair of the combatants faster than a human eye could blink and throwing a lightning quick punch at one. It should have connected. There shouldn't have been any way for the soldier to be able to react fast enough to parry it to the side while also shifting the Spartan slightly to the side, allowing the other one to throw a punch that skimmed Kelly's faceplate. Kelly quickly backed away, reassessing her enemies. There was a faint scratch on her faceplate, which shouldn't have been possible from a punch from anything other than an Elite, Brute, or Spartan.

Alongside Kelly, Fred had moved as well. The close quarters specialist charged forward, knife lancing out towards one of the soldiers. The blade was caught in the center of a rifle before said rifle was snapped in two by the force of Fred's strike. The soldier danced back, dropping his destroyed rifle and drawing a combat knife. Another soldier moved to open fire on Fred, but promptly had their rifle shot from their hands courtesy of Linda. The only soldier left with a weapon that wasn't occupied opened fire, forcing Linda to roll to the side to dodge the automatic fire. Fred was quickly occupied in his fight.

As John moved forward and intercepted the last unoccupied combatant to stop him from attacking Fred from behind and was pushed back for a moment, he was forced to realize something: these soldiers weren't just any soldier. They couldn't be to keep up with a Spartan. They were Spartans too.

**AN: Yes, I know the argument that Spartan IVs can't fight Spartan IIs on equal playing fields is entirely true. Except for **_**one**_ **key point: the wiki says that Gen 2 MJOLNIR armor allows Spartan IVs to fight Spartan IIs in Gen 1 MJOLNIR armor. I agree that Locke shouldn't have been able to fight Chief on equal terms in Halo 5 (Chief was more experienced than Locke even if he was pissed off, meaning that he would have won more easily than he did in Halo 5). In this case, Blue Team is, **_**at best**_**, using Mark V MJOLNIR armor. That means that they're further behind the times than they are in Halo 4 and 5 (they used Gen 1 armor in both of those games). While the Spartan IIs have experience on their side (having trained since six years old to be the ultimate soldiers), they not only underestimated their opponents, but they also have less strength and protection and speed offered by their armor. As a result, the Spartan IVs have a slight edge over Blue Team even with their lesser augmentation. Furthermore, Blue Team have not had all of the experience they will have by the end of the Human-Covenant War as the Chief hasn't had to fight the Flood or Prometheans or any other galaxy ending threats as of yet.**

**As for why the Spartans IVs surrounded Blue Team like that, they got the door open and see a group of Spartans surrounding a holotank while in defense positions for said holotank while enemy AI number one's avatar is on the holotank. Preparing to apprehend these Spartans is the minimum they'd go for. As for Blue Team attacking the Spartan IVs, that's due to their common sense refusing to allow themselves to be captured when they (believe) can fight their way out as well as refusing to just stand there and get shot while shooting at the Spartan IVs. **

**Now then, with both of those things out of the way, I'd like to say that uploads this quick aren't normal for me. I usually don't have the time to quickly update, hence my comment at the beginning of this chapter. So, please don't get your hopes up for rapid uploads too much. I'd hate to let you guys down when I don't deliver. **

**Thank you to everyone who has favorited and followed the story so far, as well as the three people who have already reviewed this story. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and the rest of the story as it is slowly but surely released!**


	3. Chapter 3: Hard Contact

**AN: Hey guys. Sorry it's not a new chapter of Changing Universes, but I've been pretty interested in this story more, namely because of the release of Halo: Reach on PC and its re-release on Xbox One. I do have half of CU's next chapter written though, and hope to have it out by the end of December or early January.**

**Lunar Orbit, Unknown Vessel: 1835 hours; June 24th 2552**

"Spartans, stand down!" John half-shouted. As the de-facto leader of the Spartan IIs, the other Spartans should have listened.

They did not, with the one he was occupying shoving John's strike to the side before lancing out with their fists. John rolled back, and five short cracks rang out, evidently from a Magnum, and five bullets impacted against the other Spartan's chestplate. The first four bounced off of the yellow field indicative of shielding — John didn't want to think of the implications of possible Insurrectionists having energy shielding and their own Spartan program — while the last crumpled against the armor, barely denting it rather than going through.

The force of the rounds knocked the blue armored Spartan back, however, giving Fred an instant to duck under his opponent's blade, flip his own blade, and then sink it into the back of the stumbled Spartan's knee. The red-black Spartan promptly lost his footing, falling to the ground with a crash.

Fred's head snapped back from the force of a short spray of fire from the blue and green armored Spartan who still had his rifle, though his shields did hold long enough to let him roll to the side and get back to his fight with the other knife-wielding Spartan. Linda, in the moment the blue-green Spartan had taken his aim off of her, performed a quick shot with Nornfang. The anti-material round went through the enemy Spartan's shoulder, cutting through the shielding and the underlying bodysuit, knocking the opposing Spartan over, sending him flipping head over heels to slam into the ground. He was out of the fight now, with the only possible way of resisting — a magnum he drew from his side with his uninjured hand — being shot from his hand by Kelly in a short moment.

With the aid of John and Linda, the remaining Spartans were subdued, non-lethally. John took in his team's state in a moment. Fred had several scratches on his armor and small sections of his bodysuit were darker than normal, indicating that they'd been stained with blood.

The door opened again before anyone could speak. The Spartans of Blue Team spun around, weapons raising. John saw four objects fly through the open doorway, moving incredibly fast. He made to dodge to the side when one of the objects suddenly increased speed and curved through the air towards him. It latched onto his chestplate, and his HUD displayed a message in blood red: 'ARMOR LOCKED'. John turned his head, the only thing that he could still move, to look at the rest of Blue Team. The only Spartan who hadn't had their armor locked down was Kelly. She'd managed to roll out of the way of the device just before it would have latched onto her.

She'd barely moved to remove the object that had hit Fred, the Spartan II closest to her, when another team of the other Spartans charged through the open door, weapons raised and aimed at Kelly. "Blue Team. Stand down." The red-black colored Spartan at the head of the four-man team ordered. Kelly tensed. John could tell that she was preparing to attack them, unwilling to go quietly.

"Kelly, don't. We have a better chance of getting out when we're all able to fight and when we have more information." John spoke over their secure comms. Kelly hesitated for a moment before lowering and then dropping the magnum in her hands.

Two of the other Spartans moved forward, each gripping one of her arms near the bodysuit. The one on Kelly's left pressed another one of the disk-like objects attached to the other Spartan-IIs' armor to Kelly's chestplate. The glow that covered the other three Spartan IIs covered Kelly as well, locking her armor down.

The leader of the other team of Spartans raised a hand to the side of his helmet. Although no sound escaped, he was evidently speaking with someone, likely his commanding officer. A moment later, the other Spartans moved over to the Spartan IIs and policed their weapons, storing them on their backs and on their thighs. They then gripped the Spartan IIs arms and started dragging them along the deck plating deeper into the ship.

A blue avatar appeared on the holotank a few moments later, an extremely displeased expression on her face. "Nobody takes what belongs to me."

**UNSC Infinity: UNKNOWN; UNKNOWN**

"Doctor Glassman?! How's it looking down here?!" Lasky's voice echoed throughout the expansive engineering room, the UNSC Captain being forced to shout to be heard over the sounds of the engineers' work. The doctor in question stood atop one of the many catwalks criss-crossing the room to allow access to most of the parts for the engineers to perform maintenance.

"Captain Lasky!" Glassman called back. "I'll be with you in a second!" The doctor made his way to a maintenance lift and used it to travel down to the deck. He made his way over to Lasky a moment later. "Captain." The doctor nodded.

"What's the situation, Doc?" Lasky gestured and started walking towards the main observation area in engineering with Glassman in tow.

"It's pretty strange, Captain. The computer we've got working says that the reactors are out of sync, which is impossible because we just had them synced up two weeks ago. It normally takes months to years for that to happen." Lasky shook his head at the scientist's response.

"Nothing about this is normal, Doctor. Do whatever you have to do, but get the Infinity back up and running. Take any personnel you need. I don't want to be a sitting duck when-" Lasky cut off as the lights flickered out. Several crew members activated emergency lighting and continued working. "When Cortana or the Covenant find us." A junior officer rushed over to Lasky.

"Sir! Fireteam Crimson has captured a Spartan-II fireteam." Lasky turned towards the officer, hiding his concerns. "They were trying to gain entry to the rest of the ship via hangar eleven when they ran into Fireteam Aurora. When Aurora tried to apprehend them, they attacked and caused minor injuries before Crimson responded and neutralized the Spartan-IIs."

Lasky nodded, stepping away from Glassman, who had turned back to one of the few functioning consoles to resume working on the reactors, and started walking. The officer who had brought him the information followed him. "Where are they now?"

"Aurora's in the medical bay to recover, and Crimson took the Spartan-IIs to the brig. Majestic and Crimson are both acting as guards for them. Also, sir, Aurora reported seeing a…" the officer looked at his datapad, "blue-purple light emanating from a holotank that the Spartan-IIs were crowding around for a split second before it disappeared. Crimson-1 thought it was a trick of the light, but Crimson-2 reported it anyway."

Lasky's eyes widened a fraction, and he rushed to the wall and accessed the communications. "Lock down all our systems! Now!"

The holotank next to Lasky lit up, and Roland appeared. "Captain? What's going on?"

"Cortana. She's in our systems. Lock everything down. Initiate all our cybersecurity measures. She cannot be allowed to sabotage the ship or worse, take control of it." Roland nodded, offered a salute, and started working on a simulated console that appeared in front of him on the holotank.

**Lunar Orbit, Unknown Vessel: 1858 hours; June 24th 2552**

Cortana released a digital sigh as she almost ran into yet another firewall. She had only managed to get barebones information on anything, most of which she already knew. Things like the ship's name, its class, how to make ramen noodles, and a bunch of other useless information.

While she could have ripped the basic cybersecurity apart, she doubted she could have done so without alerting the crew members running cybersecurity on the "Infinity", which she couldn't afford to do with Blue Team captured and with her not knowing what was behind each firewall.

Cortana grumbled in displeasure, about to move away from the firewall before she paused. There was an AIs signature embedded in the firewall. It wasn't being managed by any humans, but by an AI. It was a Smart AI too, she could tell from the complexity of the firewall.

She backtracked towards an earlier firewall and, sure enough, the same AIs signature was embedded in the firewall. "RLD 0205-4…" Cortana had not heard of any AI whose serial number started with RLD, but that would make sense if it was an insurrectionist AI and not a UNSC one.

She took a closer look at the firewall, "Hmm… It's really similar to current day UNSC firewalls, but more advanced." That was surprising. Not the fact that it was similar to UNSC technology — the Insurrectionists had been using UNSC technology for years — but rather the fact that it was more advanced than the UNSC's cybersecurity. Then she noticed a symbol. It was an eagle sitting atop a globe with its wings spread. The eagle had a shield across its chest along with a set of letters very familiar to Cortana: UNSC.

And then, over a hundred other firewalls appeared, these much heavier than the prior ones. "Cortana!" An orange-yellow hue fell over the area and the avatar of a World War II era pilot formed. It had to be RLD 0205-4. Cortana promptly turned and 'dove' through the firewalls before they could finish forming.

A black firewall instantly appeared around her, caging her in before she could fully escape. The cage had a very familiar signature attached to it. A signature attached to an organization whose symbol was a triangle with a circle in the center and another one on the outside of it: ONI.

**AN: I mean, it would make sense that ONI would have ways of trapping "problem" AIs, right? Especially when they're the ones who create some of the best smart AIs used by the UNSC (Cortana, BB, etc.). Considering the problem of Cortana in particular, with her being an enemy of the UNSC as of Halo 4/5, I think it'd make sense for them to develop anti-AI weapons specifically directed towards Cortana if she ever did try to attack a UNSC ship with a cyberattack. **


	4. Chapter 4 - Preparations

**AN: So glad that my college applications and midterms/finals are done now. They've been a major pain, especially since I caught the flu and had to re-take most of them, hence why it's taken so long to get a new chapter of anything out. I got a few complaints last chapter about having Blue Team lose to a Spartan IV team, so I wanted to explain that a bit here. First of all, Blue Team expected their opponents to be normal humans (seeing as it was basically impossible to see any Spartans as being traitors at that point) and because they were outnumbered, out-teched, and outgunned. They also hadn't had all of the experience that they would have had by the end of the war/after the end of it when they were facing off against Locke/Osiris, hence why they were beaten. Anyway, I won't take up any more of your time with an AN.**

**Lunar Orbit, Unknown Vessel: 1858 Hours; June 24th 2552**

The sound of shattering glass; shards tinkling as they hit the ground. Cortana personally thought that the sound was somewhat pleasant, especially since the shards in question were the remains of the firewall she'd just ripped apart with only a 0.018 second delay after encountering it. The firewall had been incredibly advanced; far too advanced for an insurrectionist group to create, which had her tasking several of her thought process subroutines to the possibility that the ship was not an insurrectionist vessel and instead a ship that had been built by ONI without informing anyone. The ship did match the records for the Infinity project that she definitely didn't know about.

Even as she 'ran' through the inners of the ship's computer systems, she felt RLD chasing her. She ignored it, sending a few false copies of herself into other areas to throw the other AI off. The AI fell for one of them, splitting off and heading into a different area of the ship's cyber systems. She eventually slowed down, hiding herself inside one of the less important ship's systems.

Cortana let out a digital sigh before she started working her way into the less secure systems of the ship.

**UNSC Infinity: UNKNOWN; UNKNOWN**

Captain Lasky, having left engineering a half hour prior and been moving through engineering tunnels since, stepped onto the secondary bridge of the Infinity. "Roland, status report." The AI didn't respond. "Roland?"

"Sir, Roland's processing cores have all been running at maximum for the last ten minutes. He hasn't been responding since then." That worried Lasky. Very little could occupy a smart AI's attention to that extent.

Lasky had been about to order a hard restart of Roland's processors when the bridge lit up. All of the red emergency lighting deactivated and the normal lighting returned as consoles lit back up. Lieutenant Hernandez, the tactical officer, pulled himself from the deck plating. "Auxiliary power just came back, we've got tactical."

'Well, I guess we know what Roland was up to…' Lasky thought as Hernandez continued with his report.

"Shields are up to 12% and rising at a rate of half a percent per minute." The officer's hands moved across the console, swiping aside dozens of error reports and cleared the workstation as he continued speaking, the rest of the bridge crew moving to their stations as well. "Archer missile pods B12 through D1 are hot, Howler pods A14 through B3 are online, MACs are offline, Onagers 10, 13, and 23 are online."

Lasky listened as the other bridge officers gave their own reports. 'Maneuvering thrusters and the starboard engine are online, so we can maneuver a little bit. Slipspace drive is offline, so that isn't an option. The Stridents are stuck inside along with our fighters, internal comms are isolated to only a few areas, and external comms are still down. All in all, we could be in a worse situation, especially after a Slipspace accident.'

Lieutenant Hernandez spoke again. "Sir, we've got forty contacts surrounding us. Sensors can't identify. They could be ships or they could be asteroids or just random space junk, I just don't know. There's a habitable planet about two AU from here."

Lasky moved over to the holotable, bringing up a basic gridview of the space around the Infinity. There were 40 blue dots located around the Infinity —which was represented by a yellow dot and the ship's name located next to it— and, when he expanded it, there were four planets within sensor range and a star, though there weren't many details available. "Is there any way we can get more information on what the objects surrounding us are?"

"We could send out a radiation "pulse" from the Slipspace drive and use the information from what the radiation hits to create some basic visual models for what the objects look like." The officer in charge of engineering said. "Best way to do it would be to orient the ship towards the center mass for the unknowns and then run through the process to open a portal, which would cause the radiation absorbers to release the radiation instantly as part of the emergency procedures to make sure the radiation won't flood the ship instead of space."

Lasky stood, leaning over the holotable in thought for several moments. 'If those unknowns are ships, they might take us releasing a burst of radiation as an attack.' His options were to either do it and have a better idea of the situation or keep the Infinity where it was, focusing on repairs and waiting to get sensors back online. The unknowns could have been waiting for reinforcements before they attacked, seeing as they might not know the status of the Infinity. 'Makes me wish the secondary command center had viewports…' He sighed. "We have to know what's going on out there. Lieutenant Jet, re-orient our bow to face the center of their formation and have engineering prepare to send out the pulse."

"Aye, sir."

**Halcyon class - UNSC Dauntless: 1860 hours; June 24th 2552**

Admiral Jacob Viet was a pillar of calm. After the initial shock and fear of the massive vessel's appearance had worn off after several hours of the ship doing... nothing.

Even though the "Infinity" had done nothing and was still doing nothing, the entire Earth defense fleet and all of the orbital defense platforms were on high alert and ready for combat if needed.

In all honesty, after standing on the bridge for over four hours with the unknown vessel doing nothing, the admiral was bored. He didn't show it, but he still felt the effects of it. His crew were also clearly feeling the effects, with his tactical officer fidgeting the most.

"Almost wish they'd do something already…" The Admiral muttered under his breath. Of course, the only person that heard him popped up on the holotank next to his command chair a moment later.

Summer, the AI of the Dauntless, tossed her cloak over her shoulder as she did every time she appeared and gave the Admiral an unimpressed look. "We both know that isn't true, sir. If they did move, then that means they're either moving to engage us, they're moving off, or because they want something from us. Considering their current state and the fact that we've got a lot of very big guns trained on them, it's pretty likely that they'll take offense to us."

Jacob sighed, glancing at the AI's avatar. "Hope for the best, Summer. Hope for the best." He stepped over to the holotable, bringing up the "Infinity" and the fleet surrounding it. "Hope for the best, but expect the worst. It's entirely possible this is just one massive misunderstanding for the brass." Left unsaid was the idea that the Covenant possibly constructed the ship to trick UNSC forces or that the Insurrectionists, despite their incredibly decreased power and capabilities since the start of the War, had somehow built this massive ship.

He leaned on the table and received the hourly status report — all systems were functioning as well as humanly possible — while he watched the display. "Anything from the team we sent in?"

"We've received no signals from Blue Team since we lost their IFF tags when they entered the vessel." Summer appeared on the holotable, crossing her arms as she spoke. "However, they should be making their way towards a communication or command center by now. The ship is massive, sir, so it makes sense that they'd be taking a long time."

"Sir! The unknown's shields have stopped flickering." The tactical officer spoke loudly, moving several unnecessary notifications from tactical stations around the ship to the side. "They're starting to charge at a constant rate. Whatever the crew there did also jump started them to about 10%." The man's eyes widened for a moment before he turned in his chair to face the Admiral. "They're re-orienting towards us!"

**AN: Well, that's the new chapter. I'm sorry it's shorter than I'm sure you all hoped, but this is all I had time to get out and I didn't want to make you all wait. I have a break from school coming up right after Valentine's Day, so I'll write a longer chapter then.**

**Hope you all enjoyed this chapter. Once again, I apologize for the incredibly short chapter.**


	5. Chapter 5 - Communication is Key

**AN: Hey guys. Not much to say, seeing as everything I had to say was basically included in the update, which is below this short note and you can skip it.**

**Recently, there have been a ton of troll reviews going around this site. This story recently received one. Now, a single review isn't an issue in most cases, but it's unlikely that it will be just one. This is because of the fact that I read and review popular fanfictions here and, recently, opposed troll reviewers' statements and offered sympathies towards the authors receiving them. As a result, these people have been harassing me through PMs through fake accounts and, as of today, reviewed my own story in an… Extremely unpleasant and rude manner ("LUL get cancer u pansy. Ur stories suk dicks too!") using the Guest Review feature. This is solely a result of my statements regarding their BS that these people are posting on other stories via the review section (they essentially state that the story is "shite" and that people should instead read a different one (which actually IS terrible) before stating that the author should kill themselves and that they hope the author's family dies because the author has now opposed them in an AN). As a result of these people's actions, I have been forced to turn on the feature that prevents guest reviews from being uploaded until I personally review them. I apologize for this, but I'd rather not have my stories' review sections be inundated with reviews telling me that I should get cancer, that my family should be sexually violated (as some of the reviews of the stories I read have said), and other things because I sympathize with another author's ANs in their stories' review section. Anyone with an account here will not have their reviews blocked for my review prior to being released onto the story. If the person decides to make fake accounts to continue with the reviews, I will be reporting those accounts/reviews and ask that you do the same.**

**Based off of further research/investigation, the person in question appears to be "Fan Fan 92555", who I'm sure is well known to a lot of people for his actions in the past and right now on popular stories. The stories I reviewed that caused this response from me were Coeur Al'Aran's stories, which are all extremely well written and popular within the RWBY fandom community. If any of you are part of that fandom and haven't read anything from him yet, I highly suggest you take a look at his stories.**

**Halcyon class - UNSC Dauntless: 1860 hours; June 24th 2552**

Admiral Viet brought up a larger view of the solar system between Earth and the Infinity. "If that ship does fire, where would it hit?"

The map decreased in size as Earth took its place, courtesy of Summer. She gestured towards the outward facing continent. "East Africa, sir. Considering the size of that ship's main guns, the initial impact would obliterate Mombassa, Voi, and Nairobi." The AI paused for half a second before continuing, evidently running calculations. "After that, Earth would probably end up facing the equivalent of a nuclear winter, considering how much debris would be thrown into the atmosphere."

Viet cursed internally even as several bridge officers did the same quietly. They still did their duty, however. "If it does fire, could we block the projectile? Could any of our ships slow it down enough that it wouldn't damage Earth?"

"No. The only ships that could possibly have done that were the Cradle class ships, and they've all been destroyed by the Covenant." Summer crossed her arms, cloak falling over her shoulder. "We could engage first, but if they're not actually doing anything, then they might actually react and engage us or Earth."

Before the Admiral could respond, one of his officers broke in. "Sir, I'm reading a massive energy buildup. It's not on their bow, though. It's… Coming from all over their ship?"

Viet turned to the viewports in time to see a wave of blue light escape from roughly the center of the Infinity as the officer spoke again. "Reading a massive spike in Cherenkov Radiation!" The blast shields slammed down over the viewport, the thick metal more capable of deflecting and absorbing the deadly radiation than the glass used on the viewports. "Energy levels are far beyond anything we've ever seen before! From a stable reactor, at least."

The ship rumbled ever so slightly as the wave passed over them. "Sir, I think I have an explanation." Summer brought up the Infinity on the table as Viet turned back to face her. "Their Slipspace drive had a lot of radiation built up inside it's containment room. If that ship is as disabled as we think, then it's possible that they used it as a type of sensor pulse. It's similar to the radar used until the twenty-second century. They'd be able to get a good idea of the location and shape of everything around them based on the gaps in the energy wave and the shapes of those gaps, which would be our ships."

"So this wasn't an attack?" The Admiral crossed his arms as he considered the idea. "Do they have any conventional weapon systems online?"

Summer shook her head. "Sorry sir, but I can't get much through their shields. What I can tell you is that their MAC cannons aren't online and that they don't have access to Slipspace, but the latter is only based on the fact that they just released a ton of radiation. That much radiation only accumulates when a ship's drive is damaged, so they'd have to repair it first before they can jump away."

"Sir, surrounding radiation has returned to acceptable levels." One of the other bridge officers said, the blast shields sliding back up."

Then, the tactical officer spoke. "Sir, their shields just dropped. Wait. I'm getting some strange readings. It's like they've just ejected ten fusion reactors?"

Viet turned around yet again to face the viewport, eyes narrowing as he watched the Infinity. They widened slightly a moment later as he saw the bows of ships emerging from the bottom of the vessel. "Those aren't reactors. Those are ships." The smaller ships emerged quickly and grouped up around the Infinity in a defensive formation. The large vessel's shielding flickered back into place, with shields appearing with a small pulse around each of the smaller ships as well. 'Guess that settles it…' The man's face hardened as he spoke."Battle stations."

**UNSC Infinity: UNKNOWN; UNKNOWN - 20 minutes earlier**

Captain Lasky's fingers quietly tapped along the edge of the holotable. He was nervous, but he tried his best not to show it. "Sir, we've just released the pulse." Lasky nodded to the officer who'd spoken as he watched the holotable.

The wave of radiation was shown in a light red, crossing the relatively small distance between the Infinity and the unknowns almost instantly. A moment later, the ship's backup computers created predicted visuals of each of the unknowns. Several of them were still listed as unknowns, the radiation pulse not being enough to get an accurate visual of the ship, but Lasky recognized the others: They were UNSC ships. He stopped himself from sagging in relief.

After three months of running from Cortana and whatever non-UNSC ships remained active in the galaxy, the Infinity had taken a beating and had been without servicing for the entire time. Patchwork repairs had gotten them through the time, but it wasn't good for morale for hull breaches to be repaired by hand tools rather than the larger tools available at a repair yard. It especially wasn't good for morale for the crew to think that they were the last hope Earth had.

Then, Lasky's paranoia kicked in and his eyes narrowed. Could it be Cortana? No, she'd have transported Prometheans on board already. It doesn't make sense that they're UNSC, seeing as they'd have charged back to Earth when communications cut out and they'd have been knocked out by the Guardian there.' It didn't make sense, Lasky decided.

He swiped to the side, dismissing the view of the fleet and brought up the Infinity instead, bringing everyone back to the task at hand rather than the hushed conversations that had sprung up on the bridge. "Status on repairs? Do we have communications?"

The engineering officer shook his head. "With auxiliary power back, we've gained access to most areas of the ship, but external comms are still unavailable until the engineers get to the communications center and reactivate that part of the computer. We do have internal communications though, since that doesn't require any handshake protocols to be verified. Engineering reports they can give you one engine and half thrusters for maneuvering."

Lieutenant Hernandez interrupted the rest of the report. "Sir, the doors for the Strident bays were just opened manually. Emergency power was directed towards the doors. The launch sequence has been initiated!"

'Damn it, Dare…' Lasky grimaced as he brought the view of the fleet back up. The Stridents assumed a defensive formation around the Infinity.

"Sir, I'm reading energy buildups in the other ships. They match MAC cannons charge ups." Hernandez reported.

"Can we communicate with the fleet in any way?" Lasky stepped over the engineering console.

"There's tight beam communication, but that would only work if Roland were active to do the calculations for it. His core is still running at maximum and all requests to him have bounced back."

"Don't bother with Roland then. Get one of the other AIs to do it. We've got internal comms, so have them run the calculations. If trying to follow protocol means we end up in a shootout with other UNSC ships, I'm willing to drop it."

"Aye, sir. Contacting the AI cybercenter for any AI to assist." The engineers fingers flew over the keys on the console, typing incredibly quickly.

An AI appeared on the holotable a moment later, a puzzled look clear on her face. Her avatar looked around. "This isn't the weapon bay."

Lasky stepped over to the table again. "Sorry, but we're in a bit of an emergency. Protocol had to be dropped, with Roland busy somewhere else. We need to communicate with the other fleet." He gestured to the images on the holotable's map. "One of my officers suggested that we could use tightbeam communications, which requires an AI's calculations to be accurate, considering the distance."

The AI's head bobbed as she gave a short salute. "Aye, sir." She disappeared a moment later.

It took less than two seconds before the engineer responded again. "Sir, tightbeam comms established with the ship in the center of their formation."

Lasky pressed the button on the holotable that activated the communications system and spoke. "This is Captain Thomas Lasky of the UNSC Infinity. Do not engage us. I repeat, do not engage us. We are non-hostile."

**Halcyon class - UNSC Dauntless: 1860 hours; June 24th 2552**

Admiral Viet was about to give the order to engage the formation of ships when Summer interrupted. "Wait, sir. We're receiving a transmission from the Infinity. Tightbeam communications."

'Well, we know they have an AI.' Viet frowned. "Put it through."

"This is Captain -asky of the - Infinity. Do not -gage us. I repeat, do -t engage us. We are non -stile."

The transmission was clearly garbled due to the distance between the ships as well as the difficulties of transmitting over tightbeam communications. It was usually only used to communicate to vessels that were close by, and even then only to transfer sensitive information in a way that ensured it wouldn't be intercepted.

Viet was silent for a moment before he accessed the communications system and established a return link, Summer having already done the calculations for it. "Infinity, this is Admiral Jacob Viet. You have violated protocol in dropping from Slipspace so close to Earth. Provide an explanation."

There was silence on the other end of the line for several long moments. Viet was about to repeat himself when a return communication finally came through. "Sir, this can't be Earth. We were in the -ntis syst- when we su-ered a Slipspace malf-tion. Our planned -stination was no-ere near -rth."

Viet grimaced at the static pervading the transmission and muted his end of it as he turned to his comms officer. "Is there any way to clear that up?"

The officer shook his head. "No, sir. Not unless you want to move the ship out of the formation and closer to that ship."

Viet sighed, unmuting himself. "You're here now, and above the Moon. Even if that wasn't your planned destination, you're in violation of the Solstice Protocol."

There was, once again, silence from the other end for several moments. "That -otocol was ch-ged in 2555, -aning that if this -as Earth, then -e're well within the -arameters for the Protocol."

Viet shared a somewhat confused glance with his first officer before frowning. "Infinity, I don't know what you're trying to pull, but I think it's time you stop. It's 2552, and we both know it. Stand down and have your… Escort frigates dock."

**UNSC Infinity: UNKNOWN; UNKNOWN**

Lasky's brow furrowed. It didn't make sense how a well respected and known Admiral would think it's 2552 when the year was 2559. Lasky paused, muting the communications system. "What classes are making up that fleet?"

Hernandez responded. "Based on the pulse, there are several…" He frowned, brow furrowing. "Uh, Halcyon classes, Paris classes, a few Athens class escorts, an Eion class, Halberd class, and a few Charon class frigates."

Lasky understood Hernandez' confusion. Several of the classes he'd reported had been retired after the end of the Human-Covenant War.

An insane idea let itself be known in Lasky's mind. 'Could we have been transported back in time?' It had long been stated that time travel was impossible, but based on the composition of the UNSC fleet, the extreme commonalities that this solar system had with Earth, and the fact that Admiral Viet didn't recognize the flagship of Humanity or the class of ships for its escorts…

Before Lasky could think anymore on it, a purple glow appeared on the holotable. His eyes flicked over to it and took in the avatar of the AI that had appeared on the holotable. His eyes widened. "Lockdown all systems, now! Manual control only!"

Roland appeared on the table a moment later, panting despite the fact that the avatar was only a simulation. "Stop running, Cortana." Cortana simply snapped her fingers.

**Halcyon class - UNSC Dauntless: 1860 hours; June 24th 2552**

Viet waited for a response. The line cut out for a moment. It re-opened a moment later. "Sir, I'm receiving a message from the other ship. It's from Cortana." Summer said. "It's… A registry number?" Summer's avatar went still. "Checking." The AI was silent for a moment. "The number she sent us is reserved for an unknown ship class. Information on the ship has been classified, by ONI."

The AI was silent again, this time for nearly a minute. "ONI liaison AI BBX-9905 confirmed one thing about that registry number: the planned name for the ship with that number is UNSC _Infinity_."

**AN:**

**First of all, I'm sorry that I didn't make this as long as I'm sure some people hoped. I'd originally planned to write about 3000 to 4000 words here, but ended up cutting out about 500 unneeded words that were just filler when I read it before uploading it. I also couldn't get another 1000 or so words written for it since I'd already put in everything I'd planned for this chapter.**

**Anyway, the crew of the Infinity and the UNSC fleet are starting to figure out that this situation isn't exactly normal, beyond the fact that a 5 kilometer long warship just appeared above the Moon, that is.**

**I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. I have no plans to abandon this story, but there will be a bit of a pause for the next couple of months. I've got entrance exams for the University I'll be attending this Fall that I have to prepare for alongside a ton of school work that I have to deal with. I've also got several big events that I'll be going to throughout the next couple months that I have to prepare for. Suffice to say, my schedule is pretty much full until the end of May/start of June (after which all of my final High School exams will be done). I just wanted to let you all know before I go dark for a few months.**

**I hope you're all enjoying the story so far!**

**AN #2 - June 6th, 2020:**

**Hey all. It's been awhile (over two months, in fact). I don't have a new chapter for all of you yet (please don't come after me with pitchforks _ yet_)_ , _but I decided that this chapter needed a small update. Specifically, about the tightbeam communication that was being employed between the _ Infinity_ and the _ Dauntless_. Sending over historical data and personnel information when just audio communications were patchy at best was unrealistic. Sending over a set of numbers, on the other hand? That's much more achievable. **

**I also thought that I should update you all on the status of the next chapter. I am working on it, now that my final exams are done and over with this year. That said, I still do have some other obligations to deal with before focusing all of my attention on the chapter (such as my graduation, placement exams, etc.). I'll have finished up with my obligations in a couple weeks, which means that the next chapter should be released here around June 25th or so. It'll be the longest chapter I've uploaded yet, so that's why there'll be a bit of a gap between me finishing everything up for high school and me uploading the chapter. **

**Thank you all for your patience and eagerness for the next chapter of this story!  
**


	6. Chapter 6: Home Sweet Home

**AN: Like some of you have noticed, I've taken a bit of liberty with the timeline. That's mainly because I'm not the most familiar with the timeline (I'm hardly a Halo expert), so my excuse is this: it's a slightly alternate timeline instead of just the past. That's my reasoning for the very minor shifting of locations and events compared to Halo canon, such as BB being around a few months before he was created in canon from Doctor Alban's brain August 17th, 2552.**

**Unknown Location, Unknown Vessel: Estimated Time: 2350 Hours; June 24th, 2552**

John was not unused to being a prisoner. In fact, he'd been one numerous times. Most of those times, however, he'd allowed it to act as bait or to gather information. The last time he'd been captured without it being his intention had been in 2523, when the insurrectionists had captured him and the rest of Blue Team. The only reason they had gotten out of the trap was because of Kurt-051, who he knew wouldn't be bursting in to save them. Even if Kurt had been alive, he probably wouldn't have been able to make it past the platoon of pseudo-Spartans guarding Blue Team's cells.

The armor lockdown device had deactivated, clearly running out of power, half an hour after he'd been dragged to this cell. Since then, he'd simply sat where he'd been placed. His mission timer told him he'd been here for six hours, and his own mental clock confirmed that information.

He'd used that time to find out what he could about their captors and their cells. He, like the other members of Blue Team, had memorized the path from their infiltration point to where they were now so they could escape later without getting lost in the myriad of corridors they'd seen while being dragged here. After arriving, it had taken him a mere minute to conclude that there was no way that he or any of the other Spartan-IIs held prisoner here would be escaping stealthily. The only way in or out, considering their bulk, would be through the cell door which looked to be as strong as MJOLNIR's armor plating.

After reaching the conclusion that the only way out would be through the pseudo-Spartans guarding them, John had watched them. They acted more like ODSTs than Spartans in that they acted more casually than his Spartan-II brethren. They moved subtly, shifting weight from foot to foot occasionally, clearly uncomfortable with standing for so long without moving, and they took their eyes off of him to talk with their fellow guards. He couldn't hear them, seeing as they were clearly speaking on a private comm. channel like he did with Blue Team on missions.

The most expressive part of how casual they were compared to Spartan-IIs, however, was their armor. It was ridiculously varied, even among single squads. One of the pseudo-Spartans — one of the guards for Kelly — even had a horn attached to his helmet. It didn't even look sharp enough to be useful in combat, even if there had been any benefit to lowering your head and charging at an enemy to impale them on your head. Instead, it seemed to be a clearly stylized choice. Another of the guards wore a helmet with no visor and was clearly reliant upon cameras implanted in the helmet. That guard would be at major risk if they were hit with an EMP that overloaded their systems despite the countermeasures that would have existed. Without the ability to see, they would have to remove their helmet which would lead to a very fast death. Even the color of the armor indicated the pseudo-Spartans' individuality. None of them wore a color that would be useful in a military setting, save for one who wore pure black with red along the edges of the shoulder pads and knees. They wore bright and flashy colors, like blue or green or bright red or purple or — and this one was most surprising to John — even pink.

Despite how casual they acted and appeared, however, it was clear that they were indeed Spartans. Granted, they were shorter and less bulkier than Spartan-IIs, but there was no mistaking their size, armor, and weaponry as anything less than Spartan-grade. They were consummate professionals, like John and his fellow Spartan-IIs.

John was drawn from his hours of observation and planning by the sound of boots clanking on the deck. He very carefully and slowly stood, noting the tensing of the squad that had been assigned to his cell. Another of the pseudo-Spartans appeared in front of his cell. Unlike the others, however, she seemed to be more experienced and intelligent, as was clearly shown by the relative lack of personalization in her armor. It was a drab gray in color, with the light seeming to be absorbed by it rather than reflected. Her visor, unlike his own, was a solid blue.

The three-man team of pseudo-Spartans guarding his door raised their weapons and aimed them at him. The door opened a moment later and the gray armored pseudo-Spartan stepped inside. "Your hands." It was an order, not a suggestion.

The Chief knew he'd be able to take one or two of these pseudo-Spartans down by himself, but not when there were twelve of them outside the door that were armed with high powered weaponry — they all held shotguns in their hands with the butts of automatic weapons sticking up over their shoulders — and an unknown number of hostiles guarding the other corridors.

Having no other choice, the Chief held out his hands.

* * *

After his hands had been cuffed — he'd tested them and found that they were, in fact, capable of restraining him, he'd been marched through the corridors of the ship. The three guards for his cell had been joined by an additional 6 pseudo-Spartans who joined the escort along with the gray armored pseudo-Spartan, who was walking in front of him.

He was frogmarched through a series of winding corridors until they reached an elevator, which then took them up 400 decks, based on the numbers that flew by above the elevator doors. There were no UNSC ships that John had ever served on or knew of that had over 400 decks.

The door slid open and he was once again marched through a series of twisting corridors. After a few minutes of walking, he realized that he was being dragged in circles and figure-eights and all sorts of other shapes through this deck. His captors were evidently trying to confuse him.

It took twenty minutes of walking, but he was eventually taken down a different corridor. They took another right and he found soldiers that lined the walls all the way down to a door that was guarded by four more of the pseudo-Spartans. All of the soldiers were regular, unenhanced humans in strange armor, but it still bore the UNSC name on it.

He turned his attention to the pseudo-Spartans standing outside the door. Unlike the ones guarding and escorting him, they mostly fit his expectations of professionals. They all wore dark colored armor that absorbed light — save for one, who wore extremely dark red armor — and all were armed. The strangest part about the group of pseudo-Spartans at the end of this corridor was the fact that one of them had an ODST's helmet.

"Sorry about all this, Chief." The ODST-esque pseudo-Spartan spoke. His voice was vaguely familiar, but it wasn't one John knew off the top of his head like Captain Keyes or Lord Hood or Chief Mendez.

"Quiet, Buck." The other male of the squad ordered before stepping forward. His body language screamed _spook_. "Captain Lasky's inside and waiting, commander."

"Better not keep him waiting then." The subtle order from the gray commander had his escort marching him forward and through the door.

* * *

The last time Lasky had spoken with the Master Chief outside of mission briefs or debriefs had been right after the Didact's attack on Earth. He frowned. 'If I'd spoken with him, maybe he wouldn't have gone AWOL chasing after Cortana.' It wasn't likely, but Lasky did have a history of blaming himself, ever since the Corbulo Academy.

The doors to the observation deck slid open, followed by the clunking of boots. It was a sound he was quite familiar with, having Spartan IVs escorting him or reporting to him at all times. "Captain Lasky. You asked for the Master Chief."

"Thank you, Commander Palmer." He still hadn't turned around from the view of Earth.

The _Infinity_ had been escorted to Earth by the UNSC fleet shortly after Cortana had appeared and then promptly disappeared. Admiral Viet hadn't given an explanation as to the sudden order and had gone comm. silent since then. All of the other ships and orbital platforms had also refused all attempts to communicate. It had given him time to think, and he'd come to the conclusion that somehow, the _Infinity _had indeed been transported back to Earth in the year 2552 from 2559.

He heard the Chief being marched towards him. The Spartan guards stopped a good twelve feet away. "Beautiful, isn't she?" Lasky kept his arms crossed behind his back as he spoke. "I don't get to see her often enough." Silence filled the deck. Lasky sighed. It was familiar, the silence. The captain turned around to face the Spartan hero as he spoke again. "I know you don't talk much, Chief, but you have to give me something."

Lasky's eyes narrowed slightly as his brow furrowed. The Chief's armor was… Different from what he'd worn the last time he had seen him. If anything, it looked like the armor the Chief had worn when he'd saved Lasky's life in 2526 at the Corbulo Military Academy. Lasky remembered the whole event vividly, after all, re-living Chyler Silva's death in his arms once a week, and that was during the good weeks.

Looking closer, Lasky could see that the armor even had the 117 on the chestplate that he remembered. Lasky decided to test his theory. "You have no idea who I am, do you Chief?"

* * *

John hadn't recognized the man standing by the observation window. Even with his enhanced vision, it was too dark, especially since the light coming through the window created an additional shadow that hid the man's face. Evidently, the man — a captain, if his captors' words and the uniform he wore told the truth — was familiar with him, though.

He glanced around the room, barely moving his head. It was clearly an observation deck. John had spent time during sub-light journeys looking at the stars or planets on such decks. It was a strange place to conduct an interrogation, which meant that he had to conclude that this wasn't an interrogation at all.

"You have no idea who I am, do you Chief?" The words came as a surprise to the Spartan. The man walked towards him, ignoring the sudden stiffening and quiet warning from the guards — 'Commander Palmer' also gripped one of her pistols —, and entered the artificial light of the deck. He was middle aged, with just the starts of gray hair on his head amongst the dark brown. His outfit was a drab gray, the symbol of the now-defunct UEG on his left breast and captain's bars on both shoulders and the symbol for it on his collar. The man wore a shoulder pauldron and an armored vest on top of the uniform. He also had a magnum strapped to his thigh. All of it combined indicated a battle dress uniform rather than the standard service or dress uniform the Chief was accustomed to.

It took the Chief several long moments to reply, mostly because he was trying to figure out what exactly was going on. He could see Earth outside the observation window, and the man had even pointed it out. That implied that the ship _was_ a part of the UNSC, or it would have been obliterated by the orbital defense platforms and the fleets around Earth, regardless of Blue Team's presence. Yet, the UEG symbol wouldn't be worn by a UNSC captain, and the uniform this 'Lasky' wore was most certainly _not_ a BDU the Chief was familiar with.

The Spartan-II finally decided that if the rest of the fleet would treat him as a captain, he would as well. "No, sir. Should I?" The captain frowned and was silent for a short moment.

"Let him go."

Commander Palmer immediately moved forward, standing between the captain and the Spartan prisoner. "Sir! The Master Chief represents a massive security breach!"

_That_ puzzled John. 'Since when have I been considered a security breach? I know the importance of op-sec and ONI's operations. I'm part of NAVSPECWEP after all.'

"Not right now, he doesn't." Lasky shook his head.

"We have no idea what Cortana did to him and the rest of Blue Team! If he doesn't recognize _you_, then we-"

"Drop it, commander. I've given my order." The words were firm, almost asking the pseudo-Spartan to continue arguing. "Don't make me relieve you of duty, Commander." John frowned at the unprofessionalism the commander was showing by arguing with her superior officer.

"Sir, yes sir." The words took a few moments to come out, but the commander stepped aside. One of the guards removed John's cuffs. The Chief slowly lowered his arms to his sides. Lasky crossed his arms behind his back and widened his stance so that his legs were in line with his shoulders.

"Crimson, you're dismissed." The pseudo-Spartans that had escorted him there snapped off smart salutes and made their way out the door, leaving the Chief alone with Commander Palmer and Captain Lasky. "Sorry about the escort and welcoming party, Chief. We… Well, I'm not sure what I'm allowed to tell you, actually."

"How about nothing?" The words were 'professionally' spat from Palmer's mouth. They caused the Chief to frown, along with the Captain.

"Commander Palmer. You're dismissed as well." Her head turned to face Lasky, clearly about to argue yet again when he interrupted her. "Don't make me relieve you of duty and give you a demerit, commander." She harshly snapped off a salute after a moment and made her way out the door.

'Most definitely not a Spartan. None of us could ever be so unprofessional.' The Chief was silent as he mulled everything over. He spoke without thinking a moment later. "I wasn't aware of another augmented special forces group, sir." The question was clear: 'why haven't anyone seen these pseudo-Spartans before?'

Lasky faintly smiled for a moment before it was wiped from his face. "I'm sorry Chief, but I can't share any information on the program, even with you." That told the Chief a few things. First, that Lasky _wanted_ to tell him about the pseudo-Spartans, but couldn't. Second, that his clearance level as a part of ONI and NAVSPECWEP wasn't high enough to know any details other than the fact that they simply existed, and even that was only from seeing them in person. Third, that it was indeed a fully fledged, up and running program rather than simply a dozen or so prototypes.

"Chief, what's the date?"

Before either Lasky or the Chief could speak again, a voice came from Lasky's wrist, where the Chief noted a small communicator was attached to his BDU. "Captain Lasky, you're needed on the bridge." There was a short pause. "Along with the Chief."

* * *

The walk to the bridge was short. Captain Lasky hadn't been concerned with leaving his back open to the Master Chief, probably of the trust he held in the Spartan-II, though the Chief did note that the pseudo-Spartans did not trust him as they immediately took up escort positions between him and the captain.

Lasky stepped onto the bridge and paused at the sight of the digitally projected screen. He snapped a salute off. "Lord Hood, sir!" The older officer was frowning, face almost as hard as stone.

"_Captain_ Lasky." The word was emphasized as though the man didn't actually think Lasky was a captain. John frowned. "Master Chief."

"Sir." The Spartan-II snapped his own salute off, as did the escorting Spartans-IVs.

"How are you, son?"

The Chief was quiet for a few moments. "Green, sir." There was a moment of silence.

"Glad to hear it. _Captain_, I'd like to know more information about your ship." Hood's eyes moved over the pseudo-Spartans. "_And_ the Spartan program that you've apparently been running."

John was surprised at that. 'Lord Hood didn't know about them? Are these rogue members of ONI, or is ONI hiding things from FLEETCOM?'

"Sir, I'm… Not sure how much I can tell you.." The response was surprising to the Chief. Someone refusing Lord Hood's orders? That was practically _asking_ for a court martial. "I can talk more freely in person or over a more secure channel between just the two of us, sir."

Hood frowned. "Fine. I don't like it, but I'll allow it." He crossed his arms. "Maybe you could tell us why your…" The admiral's eyes flicked over to the pseudo-Spartans. "Special forces apprehended Blue Team. While you're at it, maybe you can explain why Cortana reported that she's been forced to hide from your AIs and all the crew."

Lasky didn't quite squirm, but he did shift uncomfortably. He was silent for several moments before straightening and crossing his arms behind his back. "Sir. Our ship is from the year 2559. In our time, Cortana betrayed humanity and Blue Team went AWOL in response. Standing orders from HIGHCOM indicated that they needed to be apprehended on sight with anything up to, but not including lethal force, especially since they fought back against the first team of Spartan-IVs sent to do so."

John examined the captain, looking his entire form over. Nothing about him showed any sign of mental instability, but his words were utterly insane. Time travel? That wasn't possible. Blue Team abandoning the UNSC because of Cortana? That was also impossible. They'd been created to defend Earth and all her colonies. If Cortana was a threat to either, then they would have fought her and her plans as they did the Covenant.

Hood evidently held as much stock in the captain's story as John. "Let's say for even a second that I believe your story. What proof do you have to support it?"

"... What's the date, sir? The exact date."

The admiral's frown deepened, but he still replied. "June 24th, 2552."

The captain tapped a few holographic keys on the table, swiping through massive amounts of text. "In three days, one of our long range observation stations in Kepler-1649 is going to go dark. There won't be any ships in the region to investigate the disappearance, so we don't know what destroyed it. What we do know is that less than a month after it's destroyed, the Covenant attacked our colony on Sigma Octanus IV. If you want proof that I, my ship, and my crew are from the future, you just have to wait three days for that station to go dark. Unless you think we're in league with the Covenant. In the meantime, I'd be more than happy to let some engineers look over some of the _Infinity_'s systems. I'm sure everyone will be interested in humanity's first ship-scale energy shields." Lasky's expression hadn't changed, but John could feel an ever so slight air of smugness coming from the captain. He also seemed to be ignoring the incredulous and confused looks that his bridge officers were sending him.

"Alright. I'll wait to see if you're right. And we'll be taking that offer to look at your shield systems." The 'and anything else we want' was left unstated.

Lasky saluted. "Aye sir. We'll await the engineer corp's arrival. Lasky out." The visual ended a moment later.

The UNSC captain turned to the Spartan after a brief moment. "Chief, the rest of your team will be escorted to hangar twenty. Before you join them, I'd appreciate it if you could get Cortana off my ship." For all the respect that Lasky seemed to have for the Chief, he seemed to have a solid dislike for Cortana.

'If he's telling the truth, and he is from the future, then Cortana's betrayal would make sense for why he dislikes her.' The Chief pulled himself from his thoughts, giving a simple "yes sir" as he moved to the table in the center of the bridge. Cortana appeared on it as he approached. John noticed the sudden tensing of everyone on the bridge, including the pseudo-Spartans. He held out Cortana's chip.

Within a moment of her transference into the chip, another AI, this one looking like a World War II aviator, appeared. "Stop running, Cortana, I've cut off the rest of your escape pa-… Oh." The AI sighed, shoulders dropping. "I… Guess that's unneeded then."

Lasky tapped the table twice, the AI glancing at him. It disappeared a moment later, evidently reading the man's face to understand that he wanted the AI to leave. "Crimson, please escort the Chief to his team in hangar twenty." The leader of the team nodded before taking point and walking towards the door. The other three members surrounded the Spartan-II as he followed the pseudo-Spartan.

* * *

_**Moncton**_ **Class Orbital Defense Platform - Cairo Station: 0400 Hours; June 28th, 2552**

Captain Lasky had been telling the truth. It was a hard pill for Lord Hood to swallow. The idea of time travel was ludicrous. But the facts didn't lie.

ONI had snuck a few agents in with the engineers to collect information about some of the systems other than the shields on the _Infinity_. The report, which he'd just finished reading yesterday, stated that although everything on board was well over a decade ahead of whatever the UNSC could produce today, it was all undeniably produced by humans, save for the engines. Even the shields were human made. The engines, though, had puzzled the spy. They weren't Covenant, from what the spy had been able to tell, but they definitely weren't human-made.

That alone wouldn't have convinced Hood of Lasky's honesty. What did convince him was the report he'd received just a few minutes ago stating that one of the long range posts in Kepler-1649 had gone dark. What Lasky hadn't told Hood, likely because he didn't know, was that there had been a ship nearby: an ONI Prowler. The prowler had investigated after he'd ordered Admiral Parangosky to send it to do so. It had found that the station had been destroyed by a relatively small, all things considered, Covenant fleet that was currently combing over the wreckage. If Lasky was correct about this, then the chances of the rest of his information being accurate was fairly high, which meant that the colony on Sigma Octanus IV was going to be wiped off the map by the Covenant in less than a month.

Hood's first instinct was to begin an evacuation of the colony to save as many people as possible while also sending reinforcements to try to stop the Covenant fleet. His second instinct was to caution against acting quickly and rashly, primarily because of the extremely limited information he had compared to Lasky.

That second instinct was why he wasn't surprised when Captain Lasky was escorted through the door by two marines in dress uniforms. The captain saluted. "Lord Hood, sir."

The door shut behind the marines as they left. "At ease, Captain Lasky." Hood swiped up on the holodesk, the report on the Covenant strike against the Kepler-1649 outpost magnifying so Lasky could see it. "Your information was accurate. The technology on the _Infinity _is also decades ahead of our state of the art technology we have available now. Considering both of those things, I'm inclined to believe your fantastical tale of time travel." Lasky seemed somewhat relieved. "That said, I do have a few… Issues to discuss with you."

"I'll answer what I can, sir."

"The engines." Hood changed the hologram from the report to an image and accompanying scans of the _Infinity_'s engines. "They aren't human-made. Luckily for our trust, they aren't Covenant either. So, whose engines are those?"

"I can't tell you much, sir. The Existentia Protocol prevents me from discussing too much with people who aren't in-the-know."

Hood frowned. It wasn't a protocol he was familiar with, and he made clear that fact.

"I know, sir. You're the one who created the protocol, in 2557, to make sure that nobody who hadn't gone through a battery of tests and evaluations to make sure they can handle the knowledge. What I _can_ tell you right now is that the race that created the engines the _Infinity_ uses is long dead. Over a hundred thousand years dead. I can also tell you that they left all of their technology to humanity."

"Humanity had barely invented fire a hundred thousand years ago. Why would an advanced alien race leave their technology for us?"

"That's part of what I can't tell you, sir. Partially, it's because I don't know for sure. What I do know is that these ancient aliens are the reason that the Covenant has waged war against us for 27 years."

"Is that something you _can_ explain?" Hood did understand the need for protocol and why certain ones might be implemented, but he wasn't happy by being stymied by _his future self_, assuming Lasky wasn't lying about the 'Existentia Protocol'.

"Somewhat, sir. The Covenant is formed around the idea that the species that created the _Infinity_'s engines, the Forerunners, are gods. Their religious zeal is focused upon following the same path their gods did on the mortal plane to find out how the Forerunners ascended to godhood and then follow them there." Lasky shifted. "Apparently, the Prophets found out that humanity was meant to inherit all of the Forerunner technology hidden throughout the galaxy and found our existence to be a threat to their power within the Covenant, so they declared us all heretics and ordered the rest of the Covenant to destroy us for committing sacrilege. At least, that's my understanding of it. I'm not an expert on it, though, and a lot of my information comes from the Ar-, er... Second hand sources."

The backtracking had Hood narrowing his eyes for a moment as he made a mental note of it. Rather than trying to make the captain answer fully, he asked the really important question. "Did we ever win the war?"

Lasky nodded. "Sir, yes sir. But it almost cost us everything." Hood felt his heart sink at those words even as the captain continued. "We lost every colony. At the end, all we had left was Earth."

"Then how did we win? Earth doesn't have enough ships to beat the entire Covenant."

"We won because of chance. The Covenant split in two during the final days of the war because the Sangheli, uh, the Elites, discovered part of the Prophets' lie. Not the part about humanity being set to inherit all the Forerunner technology, but the part where the Prophets sent them into a war with us that cost them millions of warriors and ships just because they felt a little threatened by us. The Prophets accused them of heresy and removed them from the Covenant. The split caused chaos in the Covenant, and wiped out massive numbers of their fleets so that when we allied with the Elites because of necessity, we were able to beat the Covenant."

'It's not the craziest story I've heard… In fact, there are a lot of instances in history where that's happened before.' Hood leaned back ever so slightly as he let himself fall into his thoughts. "Is it possible to prove the Prophets' lies to the entire Covenant and cause a split early?"

Lasky was quiet for several moments before nodding. "Yes, sir, but to tell you, you'll have to go through the hoops of the Existentia Protocol first."

Hood stood almost instantly. "Then we'd better get started. I assume it can be done on your ship." He made his way around the desk as Lasky stood as well.

"Yes sir. It'll only take a few hours."

'I hope it's nothing like the yearly physical.' Hood thought as he made his way out the door.

* * *

**Spell System - Installation 04: 2.00016 Elaras Since Halo Array Activation**

343 Guilty Spark was a curious monitor, even compared to his other ancilla. He, unlike the other monitors, would occasionally break protocol by 'peeking in' on the Reclaimers to see their developmental status as a civilization and predict how long it would take to actually encounter one. The last time he had done so had been 367 Torns ago.

"Hmm. Perhaps I should check in on them again. Who knows how much trouble they might have gotten themself into without supervision. They are children, after all." The Sentinels surrounding the Monitor did not react. Of course, that was expected considering their limited intelligence.

Guilty Spark was made aware of an alert from the monitoring systems he'd left to watch the Human homeworld. A golden light engulfed him and he was suddenly in one of the secondary control rooms for the ring.

The Monitor hummed to himself as he examined the alert. Billions of calculations were completed every second for the Monitor to understand and analyze the data the monitoring station had received. After a few moments, the Monitor let out a mildly concerned hum.

"Hmm. I do hope the Reclaimers don't destroy themselves with those engines. They never did successfully pass testing for safe temporal travel."

Guilty Spark teleported himself back to the Library to resume the experiments on the Flood forms kept there. He floated down to eye level with a tank containing a dozen Flood infection forms. "Hmm. Perhaps I should keep a closer eye on the Reclaimers' affairs." After all, infinity would be very boring if the Reclaimers accidentally wiped themselves out.

**AN: Hey all! Sorry for the long wait for this chapter, but I made it longer than my usual chapters to try to make up for it. I'm hoping to be a bit more regular with updates than before and to make longer chapters as well, but I can't guarantee anything since I'm heading into college shortly and have a bunch of stuff to do to prepare over the summer. **

**Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter! See you all next time**

**Terminology:**

**1 Elara = approximately 50,000 human years**

**1 Torn = 0.9 human years**

**Note: I made that terminology up. It wouldn't make sense for Monitors to outright speak English without having encountered Humans in person before. So, he'd obviously still be using Forerunner terms for stuff. Since we don't have any Forerunner language examples, I had to make a couple things up. It won't happen very often. That said, I do have him peeking in to see humanity's development from a distance, as you can see here.**


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